


Find me after the victory

by LadyCharity



Series: there and back again [4]
Category: Dunkirk (2017)
Genre: Battle of Britain, Friendship, Gen, Invasion of Normandy, References to Antoine de Saint Exupery, perseverance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-10-05 21:43:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20495801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyCharity/pseuds/LadyCharity
Summary: There were moments when the war was quiet.In the sea-salted town of Weymouth, on the eve of the invasion of Normandy, three young men cross paths once more.





	Find me after the victory

**Author's Note:**

> My earnestness for writing actually began with stories about WWII, and although it's been years and years and years since I've written for historical fiction in that way, I always am drawn back to them. I hadn't thought that I would ever write fic for Dunkirk of all stories, but this story came to me like an itch that I needed to scratch. 
> 
> For the record, although Weymouth was indeed the site of pre-Normandy preparations, it was mostly the American troops that were in the area. It seems that British and Canadian forces were probably leaving out of Portsmouth instead, but for the purpose of this story (and because I couldn't find a proper source that stated such until well after I wrote a section in this story) I imagined that some British troops left from Weymouth as well. 
> 
> Also, the italicised section in the middle of the story is from 'Le Petit Prince' by Antoine de Saint Exupery
> 
> Thank you for reading <3.

The _ Moonstone _ brought the soldiers back home; it brought back the war as well. Like the petrol that had thickened the ocean, the war had coated itself under Peter’s fingernails, in his hair, the bitter smell of it stubbornly embroidered into his jumper, and no matter how much he tried to wipe it off with a rag or wash it away, it never seemed to come off. And now the docks of Weymouth were stained with it, and it would only get worse from here.

The first time Weymouth was bombed, Peter was helping his mother with the groceries. He helped her handle the money and puzzle out the ration book, because she often got flustered with juggling too many things at once. Half of her mind was occupied by grief already; Peter tried to pick up as much as he could on her behalf. 

They were able to purchase bacon this week. His father would never say it out loud, but Peter knew that he had been craving it, mopping the pan of its parched drippings with a thin piece of toast and chewing slowly to savour the ghostly flavour of pork. Peter was eager to cook some slices for his father, and just as he was about to pay the butcher for their allotted sliver, someone had gone running down the street, screaming _ Bomb, bomb, we’re getting bombed _! 

Peter’s mother froze immediately, clutching the loaf of bread to her chest as if a bit of toast could shield her. Peter ran out of the shop, looking out to the sky as he ran towards the coast where the other young boys were hurrying. The Isle of Portland was just a stone’s throw away, and even from where Peter stood he could see people running in the streets, the mountains of smoke. 

“Look out!” someone cried out. 

A Luftwaffe bomber swooped over the Portland Harbour; its whistling pierced Peter’s ears and sent his blood racing. He turned around and raced back to his mother at the shop. 

“We need to go home,” he said. “Come on, Mum, let’s go!” 

He bundled the groceries that had spilled from her hands into his arms and pushed his mother out of the shop. The roar of the bomber above their heads shocked sense into her, and she grabbed Peter by the wrist and ran. Peter wildly realised as he felt the bomber on the top of his hair that there was no reason that home would keep them safe from explosion. It was simply the only safe place he ever knew. 

The sight of his front door made Peter cry out with relief. Then, peaked panic when his mother fumbled with the house keys, struggling to unlock the door. Peter took every bit of courage left in him to not cower at the front step and cover his ears while the bombs shook the street. 

Mum dropped the keys. In a fit of energy, Peter shoved the front door open and realised with both relief and terror that it had been unlocked this whole time. He hurried her inside, slamming the door behind them as if the bombs had feet instead of wings. He dropped all of the groceries on the kitchen table, dreading if it could shield Mum and him from a roof caving in if they hid underneath it. 

“Lawrence?” Mum’s voice rattled through the hallway. “Lawrence! Peter, where is your father?” 

The sound of splintering made Peter choke on his breath. It sounded like it was not far away. His chest was tightly constricted, and he had to double over and will his lungs to not close up now. 

“Dad?” he called out. 

They had left his father at home to get the groceries. He had been reading the newspaper in the living room. That newspaper was now discarded on the rug, thrown off in a panic with the front door left unlocked. Peter’s heart clenched. 

“Dad!” 

Peter bolted out the door, running into the middle of the street in search of his father who was undoubtedly frantically searching for them. His heart threatened to punch its way through his chest.

“Peter!” Mum cried, “get back in here _ now _.” 

Another bomb dropped somewhere that Peter did not see; he covered his head instinctively, unable to breathe. His mother screamed, staggering off the front step to drag Peter back indoors. The door slammed shut, and she held Peter so tightly that he thought he would choke. 

It seemed a lifetime when the howling of the bombers faded into nothingness, and the sounds of bombs and crumbling buildings were soon replaced with the neighbours calling out to each other and waiting for a response. Peter did not know how long that he and Mum huddled under the kitchen table and prayed for Dad to come home, convincing themselves that they had to be the brave one for the other even though both of them trembled. 

Peter heard the creak of the front door, and he looked up so quickly that his head hit the top of the table. His father came trampling through the foyer, hat crumpled in his hand and his penny loafers were scuffed in the hurry to rush out the front door in search for wife and child. When he saw Peter and his mother hiding under a two-generations old kitchen table, he let out something that was indistinguishable between a laugh and a sob. 

“What do you think this old thing can do for you?” his father said, giving the table a shake before gathering his family into his arms. 

Dad had heard the bombing before anyone came tearing through the streets yelling about it. Even if his hearing was not what it used to be, there was no hiding from it. The moment he realised that the war had come to England, he ran out in search for his wife and son, dreading that the bomber would, on the way to the oil tanks in Portland Harbour, swoop down and strafe the butchers as well. 

Peter’s heart jolted in the middle of Dad speaking and he scrambled out from underneath the table to dig through the grocery load. He combed through the week’s groceries: the singular eggs, the childish wedge of cheese, the limp pouches of tea leaves, and realised with a great sinking in his stomach that something had gone missing.

“I dropped the bacon,” he said. 

“Sorry?” said his father. 

It was honestly a miracle that none of the eggs had shattered on the way home, but the disappointment was so palpable in Peter that it lodged in his throat. 

“I dropped the bacon on the way home,” he said. “I’ll look for it.” 

“Peter,” Dad said. “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s all right.”

“The butchers isn’t that far from here,” said Peter. “It can only have been between here and there. I’ll be back.” 

“What if they come back?” Mum said. “Peter, love, you need to stay.” 

Her voice strained with fear could have moved Peter, but his mind was made up. He was here to help feed his family while he was still young and asthmatic enough to not be drafted. The least he could do was not deprive them. 

“I’ll be fine,” he said. “I’ll be back. It’s all that we’ve got for the week.” 

He hurried out the front door and into the streets, now littered with debris, in search for a small package of bacon wrapped in butcher paper somewhere in the dust and rubble. His parents resignedly did not stop him; after all, he had a point. 

-

The war pricked Weymouth like the tooth of a viper, and its destructive venom coursed deeply into the rest of England. Rumours of London and Coventry being bombed spread to the town, and soon evolved to news print that Peter read each morning. He had only been to London once, so he couldn’t explain why his throat hurt when he imagined St Paul’s Cathedral in the midst of fire. 

But the enemy did not take its eyes off of Weymouth. Bombers struck Peter’s little hometown at the edge of night, blindly searching for the Nothe Fort and settling with Peter’s neighbours whenever they weren’t too precise. Shops and homes that he had walked past all his life would disappear in a matter of hours, and the neighbours he knew by name were suddenly missing from Mass the following Sunday. 

When a bomb had struck near the church and sent debris flying one morning, Peter ran for it, first to check that Reverend James was all right, and second to make sure that George’s grave was not disturbed. 

The churchyard was thankfully not bombed, and Peter’s stomach turned at the image of what the place might look like if it had. But debris still littered the churchyard, and left broken bricks and shingles all over George’s grave, crushing flowers and wrinkled letters. As Peter picked the debris from the ground and swept the headstones, he wrestled with the sting of hatred for the first time. 

The government issued each of the civilians an Anderson shelter, which Peter helped to install in the garden. They had to uproot Mum’s rose garden to install the shelter, but she saved the roots and kept them watered against the walls. The family slept in here instead of their bedrooms, shivering on the bunks and the sound of their breaths tight and cramped in the cold metal. Peter was most self-conscious; the anxiety of a nighttime bomb coupled with the cramped and chilled place made his breathing worse, and his rasping, guttural breaths kept everyone from sleeping until he could give himself an injection. 

Worst of all, even when his whole family was huddled in a shelter not unlike an empty bean tin, Peter felt alone. The constant waiting for a whistling Stuka to destroy his school, home, or Dad’s workplace made Peter’s guts twist, and he wished more than anything that George was still here to scour the newspapers for information with him, help clean the streets, grow a proper carrot garden to save on food. But maybe it was a mercy that George was dead, in a way, so that he did not have to see what had become of Weymouth. George had died a hero, and their home was still washed over by war. 

So instead of seeking the comfort of friends, who either were dead or sent off to war, Peter sat silently by the docks when he did not know what else to do. He listened to the quiet lapping of the water and watching from a distance as Hurricanes and a Spitfire or two from a nearby RAF base took off from the beaches to meet the enemy before they could reach England. His heart always skipped a beat at the sight of a Spitfire, and he sent a silent prayer for the pilot who may or may not be someone that Peter knew. He used to feel the same about Hurricanes, but his brother couldn’t protect him anymore.

Tonight, while Peter cocooned himself in his blanket on the top bunk, he heard the whine of the alarms warning that the enemy was flying overhead. His limbs tensed, instinctively prepared to run, but the safest place was supposedly to stay put, so he had to clamp his hand over his chest and muffle his sharp intake of breath when he could hear the groans of bombs. 

But tonight, the sound of bombers were interrupted. Somehow, through the metal and the sandbags and the piles and piles of packed dirt, Peter could hear the rush of a Spitfire, and the rattle of bullets over the harbour. The bombers must have diverted course; the explosions had stopped short, and fighter planes chased each other like a cat and mouse. 

Peter’s eyes were wide open in the pitch dark, his breath bated as the Spitfire and the Stuka battled over the ocean. He could practically see it, the two planes tearing through the darkness, the Spitfire pressing against the Stuka further and further from the shore, from home. Perhaps he imagined it, for the harbour was not as close as it seemed, but the sounds of the wind in the Spitfire’s propeller and the puncturing bullets sent chills down his spine.

“Come on, Collins,” Peter whispered. 

In his mind’s eye, Collins chased the Stuka away from the city centre, away from the library that Peter and George used to study in all the time, away from the butchers and bakers, away from the damaged church steeple. Collins would lead them in an endless chase, until the Stuka either plummeted to the sea or ran all the way back home. He would hear Peter, hundreds of metres away and several more under the ground. 

“Come on, Collins,” Peter said to the ceiling. The sound of more bullets, more strafing, more man-made storms. “Come on!”

The sounds of planes steadily melted into the distance, leaving behind only the echo of Peter’s rasping breath, and his father’s silent crying. 

-

There were moments in the war that happened once, and yet never ended. 

Like when nearly the entirety of the Weymouth Football Club had been roped into war, but the town still craved its fix of sport, so a handful of pensioners donned old uniforms and batted around a football for a crowd of several hundred. The game lasted far longer than most, but Peter still found himself screaming whenever anyone kicked a goal. 

Like when the Dawsons celebrated their eldest son’s birthday for the first time since he was killed, and on that day the snow fell heavy. Peter remembered how his brother used to pummel him with snowballs before he could properly tie a scarf around his neck. He balled a handful of snow in his naked palms and let the cold seep down his knuckles. He felt his brother everywhere and nowhere all at once. 

Like when he took a girl from his university class to see one of the new movies that was just released, a comedy by Charlie Chaplin. It made many people laugh, but for some reason Peter found it sad, and by the end of the film he had a deep longing for its imagined history of a war that set down its arms and repented. Frankly, the girl he took to the cinema made him laugh harder whilst he walked her home than the film did in an hour and a half.

Like when his mother stayed up waiting for him when he came back home late, after failing the medical exam one more time for recruitment, even to be a medic that he had absolutely no qualification for. She tried hard not to cry from relief when he told her that she had nothing to worry about, and as she thanked God for keeping him from the war he did not know what to say or feel. 

Like when his grandmother gave him a new book for Christmas from France, about a lost pilot who meets a little prince. It was meant for children, but the pilot made Peter think of the ones he loved, and of the roses in the garden that kept growing through the war. 

Like when the Americans came to Weymouth, lining the entire forests with their camps. They showered the children with sweets and leftovers of their K Rations. These boys were no older than Peter--some were actually younger--but they took one look at his wan and sickly self with only rations to get by and gave him several packs of Lifesavers as well. He was deeply mortified, but he also didn’t mind the sweets. 

Peter didn’t know why they wouldn’t end, why these memories seemed to imprint themselves in his mind’s eye. They were moments when the war was quiet, so quiet that it echoed. 

-

Peter was sixteen when Great Britain declared war on the enemy. He was twenty-one now. The war was now embedded in the country, both as terrible and as mundane as a chronic illness not unlike Peter’s asthma. At first, terrifying and full of uncertainty for the next panic attack, if it would kill him. Now, still just as uncertain and deadly, but he also had laundry to clean and wages to earn. 

He knew that something colossal was about to happen; everyone in Weymouth knew it. The Americans that suddenly flooded the town, along with Britain’s own, and the beaches barred off from civilians so that secretive vehicles practised their embarking were not exactly coincidental. The loudmouthed posters demanding censorship from civilians to save the war could shut his mouth up, but certainly not his mind. 

Sometimes the soldiers, whether they were American, British, Canadian, or from somewhere else, took to the town. Not that there was much to do, but they would walk along the docks, gregarious after a pint was snuck into them, or if there was a pretty girl that caught their eye. Peter grew used to all the uniforms that came and went, their faraway accents and sing-alongs, even if he did not see them often. 

But there was one soldier who caught his attention, and before Peter could stop to find out why, he called out at the docks of Weymouth, “Hey!” 

The soldier stopped and turned around. He was not much older than Peter, dark haired and grey-eyed, and Peter swore that he knew him. But no name came to his mind, and no time or place on which he could place a finger. He had been walking along the docks on his way back from the printing press where he worked, and the moment he saw this lone soldier ambling by the water he felt an echo in his bones. 

“Sorry,” Peter said, cheeks warming when the soldier looked up at him expectantly. “It’s just, I thought I recognised you.” 

“It’s all right,” said the soldier. “I recognise you too.” 

Peter blinked. The soldier climbed up to the street from the dock. His face and uniform were clean, and his skin, although still maintaining that quintessential English paleness, had seen the sun of war. 

“Your boat brought me home,” said the soldier.

Peter suddenly realised that the soldier had been standing next to the _ Moonstone _ just now, not touching it or inspecting it, but simply standing on the dock, breathing in the salt of the sea and trying to decipher the deja vu that he felt at the base of his chest. Peter felt a surge of deep affection, and he did not know why. 

“What’s your name?” Peter said.

“Tommy,” said the soldier. His lips parted. “Well, Tom.” 

“Peter,” said Peter. 

They shook hands. Peter had not seen Tommy in four years, and yet he was certain that Tommy had grown taller. This thought made his heart sink, to think that boys were sent off to fight and die in war before their bodies had even finished growing. 

“I’m glad to see you again,” Peter said, and he meant it.

Tommy offered a small smile. Peter wished that he could say it at the end of the war, and not at the eve of a battle that they all knew was coming. Tommy jerked his head in the direction of the _ Moonstone _.

“Do you still take her out?” he said. 

“No,” Peter said. “Too much petrol.” 

The truth was that Peter hadn’t been keen on sailing with her even before the rationing. After scrubbing petrol and George’s blood off the floorboards for what felt like hours, he had had enough time on the _ Moonstone _ to last him a while. 

“She was a very nice boat,” Tommy offered. “I don’t remember if I ever thanked you for--”

“Don’t,” Peter said. 

Tommy furrowed his brow curiously. Peter shook his head. 

“You went off to the mainland to help,” Peter said. “It was the least we could do. We’re all in this together.” 

He paused a second too late, wondering if a soldier who had to lose his friends in the heat of battle would take offense at someone like Peter claiming camaraderie with him. But Tommy did not seem to mind, or at least if he did mind he did not protest. 

“Have you been around Weymouth long?” Peter said.

Tommy shook his head.

“The Americans like going around and seeing the town,” he said. “They do invite us out, sometimes, to join them. But I don’t really know any of them.” 

Peter wanted to ask who Tommy did know, but he kept his mouth shut. In the midst of war, it wasn’t hard to guess where companions had gone. A quietness hung heavy around Tommy that had not yet sunk in with the Americans; Peter thought that he could still hear the bombs on a beach reverberate in those hollow cheeks. 

“Were you going anywhere in particular?” Peter asked.

“Not really,” Tommy said. “I just wanted to be away for a while. Maybe find a library.” 

“The libraries here are closed on Sundays,” Peter said. 

“I thought as much,” Tommy said. “It’s just that I realised something for myself. I haven’t read a book in a really long time.” 

Peter gave Tommy a long look before he clapped his hands together, causing Tommy to jump. 

“Come over to my home,” Peter said. 

“Sorry?” said Tommy.

“I’ve got books,” said Peter. “You can sit and read them for as long as you’d like.”

“I couldn’t,” Tommy said quickly. 

“Of course you can,” Peter said. “We’ve got plenty of books, and plenty of room. And I’m sure it’d be nicer to read there than back at...wherever you’re staying.” 

“No, I couldn’t,” Tommy said, mortification made plain his voice. “You’ve already saved my life once.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Peter said. “I’m not saving your life with this, am I?” When Tommy did not immediately respond, Peter gestured for him to follow. “Come on, I don’t live far from here.” 

Tommy stuttered helplessly before following Peter down the streets and to his home. Peter tried to make light the situation with conversation, all the while secretly gobsmacked by his own forwardness in inviting a stranger to his home. For all he knew, Tommy could be shell-shocked like that shivering soldier from so long ago, and cause a ruckus that would frighten Mum. But the young man had not read a book in perhaps years, and Peter couldn’t fight the war but he could help a soldier feel at home again, or at least as close to it as he could. 

He opened the front door with a casual greeting to his parents, hoping that they wouldn’t question too much the stranger that was following him. Tommy was visibly self-conscious to step into the brightly lit foyer with his heavy boots and his oversized coat, and when Dad poked his head out of the kitchen, mutual recognition made the both of them stop short in their breaths. 

“I invited Tommy over to look at some books,” Peter offered. 

“How do you do, sir?” Tommy said. 

Dad paused, before offering Tommy a warm, wistful smile. 

“It’s good to see you, son,” he said. 

Peter led Tommy upstairs to his bedroom. After his brother’s room remained a permanent wake for years, Peter had finally inherited his bookshelf and all the tomes within it. He couldn't bear to donate the books for pulping into news print, so he had everything from Victor Hugo to Agatha Christie, _ The Tempest _ and _ The Hobbit. _At the sight of it, Tommy’s eyes widened, and he ran a finger over the spines with great comfort and longing. 

“I used to live near the library back home,” he said. “When I was coming back from school or running an errand, I’d end up slipping inside and spending too much time there. Now I don’t even know if there are any new books.” 

“There have been many new books,” Peter said. He knelt before the shelf, tugging out titles and piling them on Tommy’s lap. “This one’s a new C.S. Lewis book--_ The Screwtape Letters _\--it’s really fascinating. That one was published about two years ago. And this one, it’s a book about Martin Guerre from the point of view of his wife, was published I think three years ago? Then there have been quite a couple of Agatha Christie novels in the past several years.” 

He kept stacking more and more books into Tommy’s arms, and when he pulled out one more novel from the shelf, he gave a small laugh.

“This one,” he said. “This one’s good.”

“Is it a children’s book?” Tommy said.

“It is,” Peter said, “and it is not. When I read it, I remember what it’s like to be a child. But I also feel strangely old.” He paused. “It makes me think of my brother.” 

He handed it to Tommy. He read the author’s name, and he immediately recoiled.

“I can’t understand French,” he said regretfully. 

“It’s been translated,” Peter said. “Don’t worry.” 

Tommy sat against Peter’s bed and gently opened the book. The pages still cracked with freshness. 

“What do you think?” Peter said.

Tommy said nothing. His eyes were fixed onto the pages, fingertips ghosting gently over the pages with hushed enchantment. When he did not even look up to Peter, Peter set down the rest of his books as quietly as he could, and crept downstairs to make Tommy a cup of tea. 

-

The story about a little prince with a breaking, loving heart was written by a French pilot who returned to France to protect his homeland. About a month after this day, his plane would disappear while he tried to help liberate southern France, and he would never be seen again. But that would be next month. So for today, Tommy read the story of a little prince who was trying to make his way back home. 

-

“You!” 

Peter stopped in his tracks and turned around to see a Highlander pointing at him. There was a scar down his cheek that wasn’t there before, and his skin was tanner and rougher. His voice no longer fit neatly in the seaside town of Weymouth, and it may take several more years down the line for that to happen, if he were granted it. But Peter did not immediately recognise any of this; Alex’s face was completely coated with petrol the last they saw each other, and the only words Alex spoke to him were murmured, in defeat. 

“It’s you, innit?” said Alex. He strode straight up to Peter, whose arms were full of books that he had planned to share with Tommy. “You’re the one whose boat took us back home.” 

“Yes,” Peter said, stunned. He did not know how to express how very glad he was to see Alex as well, even though he did not know why. 

Alex shook his hand firmly. 

“We’re still reading in English in this country, yeah?” he quipped. 

Peter told Alex about Tommy, which made Alex pause. He asked Peter to repeat the name, and when Peter mentioned Dunkirk, and the _ Moonstone _, and how all these pieces tied together, Alex gave an instinctive laugh of surprise, and something a little more painful than nostalgia gleamed in his eyes. 

“You think he’ll come into town today?” he said. “I haven’t seen him in so long. He’s here! Of all people. He’s alive and here, and so am I. I hadn’t thought of his name in four years and now it shocks me like lightning.” 

How is it, Peter thought to himself, that he would feel the same way? He had known next to nothing of these boys, or Collins, or any of the soldiers that sat on the _ Moonstone _ across the and yet to think of or see them again in the midst of a heavy and terrible war when the odds would have said it impossible gave him a thrill of hope. 

Tommy did come across them again, and when he saw Alex he gripped his hand tightly. It was as if they were old classmates reuniting after a long-ago youth, rather than young boys who only knew each other’s names and were about to die. 

“Some of the regiment brothers were looking for a pub or something that hasn’t set its curfew hours yet,” Alex said. “You wouldn’t know of any good places, would you, Dawson?” 

Peter exchanged a glance with Tommy and laughed. 

“To be honest,” Peter said. “I only know one place without a curfew.” 

Three young men, who were barely out of boyhood, kicked an old football around on the streets right outside of Peter’s home until sundown. They said very little to each other at first, because war had a way of sucking conversation out of its soldiers, when breath was not cheap to come by. Some of the children came to join, drawn in with curiosity by the two strangers in uniform and placated of shyness by Peter’s familiarity. Soon enough, the football went scuttling down the street with yells of encouragement and laughter, and when the sun went down there was already a pot of tea ready for them when Peter led Alex and Tommy to his front door. 

Peter had saved up on sugar for his mother to bake a bread and apple pudding for their guests. The concept of a soft home welcoming him made Alex wary at first, his shoulders stiffening at the front door and an incredulous laugh building up a wall of defense before him when Peter invited him. But when Peter’s father asked Alex if he would rather sit inside or out in the garden to drink his tea, and if he had been sleeping through the night, if he would like any milk with his tea, and that innate longing for home drew Alex in. 

So they sat on the floor of Peter’s bedroom, cups of tea in hand and a longing to be human as destroyers lined the beaches of England, ready to be boarded. They talked until the pot of tea cooled between them, about Peter’s school getting destroyed by the bombs, about Tommy’s sisters whom he missed, about Alex’s old London haunts that no one knew if they were still standing, about a home whose soil they walked on but was still miles and miles away. 

“You’re all going back very soon, aren’t you?” Peter said after a brief pause, when they took a moment to collect their breaths. “Back to the mainland to fight.” 

Tommy said nothing, but his gaze flickered towards Alex. Peter pressed his lips together, with a heaviness in his heart that he could not name. He suddenly remembered the last day of his brother’s last furlough, and how in hindsight he would comb over every detail of his brother’s day, the way he helped Dad with the ropes of the _ Moonstone _ and how Mum straightened his tie, and how he punched Peter lightly on the shoulder and told him to take care of Mum and Dad, and that Peter was free to borrow his books and football so long as he did not mess anything up in his room. They would have a football rematch when he returned, his brother promised. 

Peter wished he could remember every quiet moment, seen and unseen, of his brother, if only he had known at the time that it would be the last. But to know God’s timing was too much for humans to bear, as Peter looked Tommy and Alex in the eye and be forced to accept that these boys with whom he reunited after four years might leave tomorrow and die. 

“Don’t worry, Dawson,” Alex said. “We won’t let you down this time.” 

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Peter said, and he did not know what else to say. 

When the clock in the living room chimed, Alex and Tommy exchanged a heavy, knowing glance. Peter already knew before Tommy said that they ought to get going. They were not going to come round again tomorrow, and probably not for a very long time. 

Peter felt a sudden, overwhelming desire to be a hundred meters tall, to sweep Tommy and Alex and all the other young soldiers that Peter knew and did not know into his arms and shield them from oncoming bombs and bullets. He wanted to die for each and every one of them, to protect them from further pain and devastation and keep them safe, but he was just a young man and that would be impossible. And if Peter remembered what Reverend James taught him, it was that someone else felt the same way already, and did just that. 

“Take these,” Peter said, shoving some of the Americans’ sweets into their hands. “No, take it,” he said when he tried to give Tommy his book of the pilot and the prince. “And return it to me when you get back.”

But Tommy only smiled quietly and pressed the book back into its place in the shelf. Peter fetched two old envelopes and scrawled his address and his name on each of them. We don’t have to be friends after the war, he said as he slipped his address into their hands. But if you ever need anything, you know where to find me. I’ll be here. Find me after the victory. 

They shook hands one last time. Peter stood at the doorway to watch them leave, all of them silent save for their heavy boots on the path and the distant hum of the sea at the docks. When they faded into the night, he finally closed the door. 

-

_ "And when your sorrow is comforted (time soothes all sorrows) you will be content that you have known me. You will always be my friend. You will want to laugh with me. And you will sometimes open your window, so, for that pleasure... and your friends will be properly astonished to see you laughing as you look up at the sky! Then you will say to them, 'Yes, the stars always make me laugh!' And they will think you are crazy. It will be a very shabby trick that I shall have played on you..." _

_ And he laughed again. _

_ "It will be as if, in place of the stars, I had given you a great number of little bells that knew how to laugh..." _

_ And he laughed again. Then he quickly became serious: _

_ "Tonight−− you know... do not come," said the little prince. _

_ "I shall not leave you," I said. _

_ "I shall look as if I were suffering. I shall look a little as if I were dying. It is like that. Do not come to see that. It is not worth the trouble..." _

_ "I shall not leave you." _

_ But he was worried. _

_ "I tell you−− it is also because of the snake. He must not bite you. Snakes−− they are malicious creatures. This one might bite you just for fun..." _

_ "I shall not leave you." _

_ But a thought came to reassure him: _

_ "It is true that they have no more poison for a second bite." _

_ That night I did not see him set out on his way. He got away from me without making a sound. When I succeeded in catching up with him he was walking along with a quick and resolute step. He said to me merely: _

_ "Ah! You are there..." _

_ And he took me by the hand. But he was still worrying. _

_ "It was wrong of you to come. You will suffer. I shall look as if I were dead; and that will not be true..." _

_ I said nothing. _

_ "You understand... it is too far. I cannot carry this body with me. It is too heavy." _

_ I said nothing. _

_ "But it will be like an old abandoned shell. There is nothing sad about old shells..." _

_ I said nothing. He was a little discouraged. But he made one more effort: _

_ "You know, it will be very nice. I, too, shall look at the stars. All the stars will be wells with a rusty pulley. All the stars will pour out fresh water for me to drink..." _

_ I said nothing. _

_ "That will be so amusing! You will have five hundred million little bells, and I shall have five hundred million springs of fresh water..." _

_ And he too said nothing more, because he was crying... _

_ "Here it is. Let me go on by myself." _

_ And he sat down, because he was afraid. Then he said, again: _

_ "You know−− my flower... I am responsible for her. And she is so weak! She is so naïve! She has four thorns, of no use at all, to protect herself against all the world..." _

_ I too sat down, because I was not able to stand up any longer. _

_ "There now−− that is all..." _

_ He still hesitated a little; then he got up. He took one step. I could not move. There was nothing but a flash of yellow close to his ankle. He remained motionless for an instant. He did not cry out. He fell as gently as a tree falls. There was not even any sound, because of the sand. _

-

Peter woke to what he could have sworn was the hum of a Spitfire. 

It was still as dark as night in this hour, the sun not due to rise for another hour or so. He pulled on his coat and crept out to the street, following the ghost of a plane that had long flown away. 

He walked until he met the edge of the docks, where the war began for him. The ocean and the sky were a single black space punctuated by a descending full moon, but he swore that the lights he saw were not stars but fighter planes quietly leaving Weymouth towards Normandy, and that the sifting sound of waves was that of destroyers and battleships cutting across the currents with Tommy, Alex, and hundreds of thousands of young men on board. He was seized with the desire to take the _ Moonstone _ and follow them into war, as he seemed wont to do, if only so he could bring them home again, when this was all over. 

He sat at the docks, his spirit pinned on those ships and planes long departed, until the first flash of a gold broke through the horizon, and the day had begun. 


End file.
